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Ask Crissy: What is SEO? Do I need it? How do I do it?
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I recently had a reader ask me what SEO. They also wanted to know if they needed it, and how they were supposed to go about getting it.
SEO stands for Search engine optimization and it is definitely something that every online business owner needs to be familiar with.
It sounds big and scary - but once you get the feel for it, it’s pretty simple to understand the basics…
For today’s purposes, we’re just going to cover the basics. If you’re ready to get more technical than that, you probably aren’t reading this post anyway, because you would have been able to answer the title question yourself : )
SEO is defined by Wikipedia as “the process of improving the volume and quality of traffic to a web site from search engines via “natural” (”organic” or “algorithmic”) search results.” So, what does that mean you might be asking. Here’s how it works.
When someone sits down to their computer and wants to find information on a particular subject they go to a search engine and type in a few words that describes what they are looking for. These words are called keywords.
The sites or pages that appear in the search results are ranked in order of importance according to the search engine they used. How a site owner has optimized their site, or specific pages (among other things, a few of which include the content on the site and the number of other sites linking to that site) for those keywords determines where their site ranks on the list that appears to the person doing the search.
As you know, if you’ve ever done an online search, most people will choose one of the first few sites on the list to find the information they are looking for. So, ultimately you want your site to be listed as one of the top sites that appears for a particular keyword phrase.
You will need to not only determine what keywords fit best with your site, but also what keywords people are using to find the information you are providing. Of course, as stated earlier this is just the basics of SEO. There are more things that play a factor in optimizing your site for search engines and each search engine has their own way of determining a sites page rank, but once you understand why it’s important the rest will be much easier to put into place and comprehend.
Just as a word of caution, search engines should not be your only source of traffic as an online business owner. The ways that the search engines use to determine your page rank are constantly being changed and improved upon. You will need to determine what changes make a difference in your sites rank, but at the same time you can’t possibly expect to be 100 percent perfect for every search engine all the time. It’s just not possible, besides you have more important things, like marketing your business, to tend to that will make your business flourish.
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Looking to make some extra money at home? If you’re good at finding information online, you could start your own internet research biz and make money googling : ) Check out this resource for more info:
Internet Research Business Guide
Health Insurance Options For Indie Business Owners
A reader recently wrote me, asking about health insurance. They currently work a day job and receive health benefits - but what happens when they quit?
Well, a lot of that depends on the state you live in - and sometimes even your county, along with the type of work you perform. Sometimes, an individual state will have a health care program in place for people with no insurance. Sometimes these programs vary by county.
For example, I am from Michigan and in Genesee County, people with no insurance may qualify for the Genesee Health Plan, which allows people to go to the doctor for a $1 copay and receive meds for a $3 copay. Check with your state and county government to see if your state or county has a similar plan.
The work you perform may qualify you to join a union which will enable you to receive group discounts on health insurance. For example, there is a writer’s union, and to join a person needs to show either a published work or some rejection letters to show that they are trying to get a job as a writer. Unfortunately, only members who live in certain areas can receive the health insurance.
To find out if your profession has a union, perform a Google search with the title of your job plus words like union, guild, society, organization, etc. If a website comes up that doesn’t necessarily list health insurance options, call the organization or send them an email. They may be able to point you in the right direction.
Not all doctors are in it for the money. There are some who really do care about your health and well being and will try to make access to health care as affordable as possible. They may give you a special rate on office calls and some procedures. Call around to a few doctors’ offices and explain your situation and find out what their policies are.
As many of you know, I live in Alaska and the nearest Wal-Mart is around 3 1/2 hours away, but I have heard rumors that Wal-Mart has many prescriptions available at $4 for those with no prescription coverage. And if you live in the Mid-West, Meijers will give the uninsured some prescriptions for free.
So, if you can find a doctor who will work with you on office calls and can get your meds for $4 per scrip - or even free, then all you need to worry about is major catastrophe insurance, which would include hospitalization type stuff. You may be able to find a policy to cover just those costs at a relatively reasonable price, since the chances of you needing it are not that great.
You may even want to have a deductible as high as a few thousand dollars. Many hospitals have programs where they will allow patients with major bills and small finances to pay a percentage of their bill and then the hospital calls it even. So, if something happened and you wound up staying in the hospital for a week and your deductible was $2,000 the hospital might write off half of that, and allow you to make payments on the $1,000 you do owe, which would still be cheaper than paying $300 a month for an insurance policy that you may never use.
Make sense?
Now, there are a lot of “health care plans” popping up that I want you to watch out for. They make it sound like they are insurance, but they are not. These companies charge people anywhere from a few dollars a month to a hundred dollars or more, and the only thing they offer is a discount on services. The company makes it sound as though they worked out some special arrangement with all these medical facilities to give people a discount on their services.
That’s a bunch of hog wash. I’m telling ya - if you called the doctor yourself and said “I have no insurance, can I receive a self-pay discount?” you’d probably receive an even better “discount” than these phony-baloney companies offer and you’d be saving whatever membership fee they charge their customers.
So, the point is that you CAN find quality health care at a price you can afford, you just have to make a few phone calls and perform a few Google searches to find it.
Of course, you could help me in supporting HR676. This bill was co-authored by John Conyers a Representative of my home state of Michigan and would provide universal health care for all Americans.